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Did Explorers Really Eat Mammoth Meat at a 1951 Dinner?

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Yes you read it right. According to legend, at a 1951 meeting of The Explorers Club in New York City, those present did indeed eat mammothmeat, dining on chunks of 251,000–year–old preserved woolly mammoth, “the rarest mammalian tit–bit on earth,” possibly served in a turtle soup.

In this video, Munchies attempts to get to the bottom of this improbable (or is it?) food legend. The Explorers Club in Manhattan, which is famed for its adventurous dinners, was founded in 1904 by seven arctic explorers. It was at the club’s exclusive 47th Annual Dinner that the ‘mammoth’ meat, sourced from the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska, was allegedly consumed.

Fact or fiction?

Like all good stories, the suspicion is that the truth is probably far blander. Was it actually sloth meat the intrepid adventurers ate? Was this just a tall tale embellished over time in the spirit of showmanship?

But wait: two students at YaleUniversity have a sample of the meat eaten that fateful night and may be able to solve the mystery once and for all. Did The Explorers Club actually eat preserved mammoth meat? Watch the fascinating story unfold below: